The long term health hazards to humans posed by exposure to various materials has been increasingly recognized. Thus, there is an increasingly recognized need for effective containers for storing and transporting hazardous materials (“haz-mat”).
Additionally, special care must be taken when transporting hazardous materials on airplanes due to the particularly high threat to life and property that corrosive, flammable, or otherwise dangerous materials pose aboard airplanes. For example, improper storage and transport of oxygen generating canisters was blamed for the 1996 crash of ValuJet flight 592 in the Florida everglades in which more than 100 people were killed.
Electrical storage batteries comprise one category of hazardous materials which are sometimes transported by airplane. A number of incidents have been reported in which electrical storage batteries being transported as freight or within passengers' luggage have apparently short circuited after an electrical conductor inadvertently placed on or near the battery terminals created an electrical path between the terminals causing smoking, smoldering, and even a fire in one reported instance. Engineering specifications have been promulgated for containers for transporting electrical storage batteries by airplane. United Nations Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods—Model Regulations (UN) 2795 defines a category of wet alkali storage batteries containing corrosive electrolyte. Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), sections 178.603, 178.606, and 178.608 define performance parameters for drop, stack, and vibration, respectively, for air containers of certain types of hazardous materials.
In order to meet the safety requirements for shipping alkali- or acid-containing wet batteries via airplane, a common method is to place the battery in a one or more corrosive resistant sealable plastic bags, and then place the bagged battery inside a wooden shipping crate, usually with additional padding or containment. There is a need for improved storage containers that are capable of passing various transportation standards, including the aforementioned CFR sections for transporting various materials including UN 2795 wet alkali electrical storage batteries, but yet is lightweight and convenient to use.